1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a disposable lighter, and more particularly to a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device for preventing under age children from igniting the disposable lighter.
2. Description of Related Arts
Commercially available disposable lighters are dangerous if users are handle carelessly, especially by young children. The inadvertent ignition of such disposable lighters may result in fires causing property damage and injury to people. Therefore, there is a need for a safety device that prevents inadvertent ignition of the disposable lighter or makes the lighters difficult for children to operate.
In response to the demands for a disposable lighter which is improved in safety in such a manner that inadvertent and unintentional ignition by those who are unfamiliar with the proper use of the lighter can surely be prevented. Childproof disposable lighters having different types of child resistant device have already been known.
There are two common kinds of a child resistant device. One kind of the child resistant device comprises a pair of driving caps coaxially and rotatably mounted at two outer sides of a striker wheel in an idle manner, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,655,902; 5,096,414; 6,074,198; 5,997,281; and 5,846,069. In order to prevent the ignition of the lighter, clearance is provided between an outer circumferential surface of the striker wheel and the respective driving cap such that an adult user must apply a relative large force to press his or her thumb downwards until his or her thumb is in contact with and rub against the outer circumferential surface of the striker wheel. However, due to the idling design of the driving caps, the driving caps may easily to slip sideward, so as to misalign with the striker wheel. Therefore, the user""s thumb may merely get cut by the shape edge of the driving cap while igniting the lighter. Moreover, when an external matter, such as sand or tiny stone, enters to the clearance between the driving cap and the striker wheel, the driving cap is stunk with the striker wheel, which may loss the ordinary safety feature of the driving cap. In other words, the design of such driving cap cannot provide 100% safety feature for the disposable lighter.
Another kind of the child resistant device comprises a pair of protection discs coaxially mounted at two outer sides of a striker wheel, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,769,625; 5,897,307; and 5,882,186, wherein each of the protection discs has an outer glossy circumferential surface for reducing a friction thereof, such that the child""s thumb will easily slip off on the protection discs, so as to prevent the lighter from being ignited by the child. However, such protection discs are somewhat difficult in operation for an adult user. The adult user must apply a relative large force to press his or her thumb downwards until his or her thumb is in contact with and rub against the outer circumferential surface of the striker wheel. Thus, the residue on the striker wheel may stick the user"" thumb after every ignition of the lighter. Therefore, the user""s thumb may feel painful and dirty his or her thumb as well.
Besides, a common drawback of the two kinds of child resistant device as mentioned above is that the lighter must be required to alter the structure of the ignition wheel assembly in order to fittedly mount the driving caps or the protective caps to the striker wheel. Due to the different safety standards between the United States and other foreign countries, the manufacturer of the lighter must change the design of the child resistant device in order to meet the safety requirement of each country. Therefore, the manufacturing cost of the disposable lighter will be highly increased, which will loss the ordinary inexpensive feature of the disposable lighter.
A main object of the present invention is to provide a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device does not require to alter the original structure of the disposable lighter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device for preventing under age children from igniting the disposable lighter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device, wherein the ignition of the disposable lighter of the present invention requires a simple single-action operation by an adult""s thumb.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device which is adapted to be easily installed to all kinds of disposable lighter having a striker wheel.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disposable lighter employed with a child resistant device, wherein no expensive or complicate structure is required to employ in the present invention in order to achieve the above mentioned objects. Therefore, the present invention successfully provides an economic and efficient solution for preventing the ignition of the disposable lighter accidentally and unintentionally by the children.
Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a disposable lighter, comprising:
a lighter body for receiving a liquefied fuel therein;
a mounting frame, which is sealedly affixed on top of the lighter body, comprising a first and a second supporting walls integrally, parallelly and longitudinally extended from two sides of the mounting frame, the mounting frame further having a vertical spring chamber between the first and second supporting walls;
a spring being received in the spring chamber;
a gas lever being pivotally mounted between the first and second supporting walls and having a central cutout to allow the spring penetrating therethrough to insert into the spring chamber, the gas lever further integrally providing a thumb pusher at one end thereof;
a gas valve with a gas nozzle extending upwards above the mounting frame being installed inside the mounting frame, the gas nozzle being engaged with another end of the gas lever, so that when the thumb pusher is pushed downwardly, the another end of the gas lever lifts the gas nozzle to release gas from an interior of the lighter body via the gas valve;
an ignition device, which comprises a flint having a bottom portion inserting into the spring chamber and being supported by the spring, a striker wheel having a circumferential coarse striking surface positioned right above the flint being rotatably mounted between the first and second supporting walls by means of a wheel axle, and two driving wheels coaxially attached at two sides of the striker wheel respectively, wherein each of the driving wheels has a circumferential teeth surface and a diameter larger than a diameter of the striker wheel; and
a child resistant device which comprises a pair of shelter wheels each including a protection disc connected integrally with a shelter ring extending perpendicularly from a circular edge of the protection disc so as to define a U-shaped cross section for each of the shelter wheels, each of the protection discs having a center hole for the wheel axle passing through so as to supportively position the two protection discs at two sides of the two driving wheels respectively, wherein an inner diameter of the shelter ring is larger than an outer diameter of the driving wheels so as to define safety gap between an inner circumferential surface of the shelter ring and the circumferential teeth surface of each of the driving wheels, wherein the two shelter rings are substantially extended to partially cover the circumferential teeth surfaces of the two driving wheels respectively, each of the two shelter rings having a width shorter than a thickness of each of the driving wheels, so as to define an actuating edge at an uncovered portion of the circumferential teeth surface of each of the driving wheels.
In order to ignite the disposable lighter, an adult""s thumb must be intentionally press on the shelter wheels downward until his or her thumb""s surface skin is in contact with the actuating edges of the driving wheels through the safety gaps. Meanwhile, by rotating the driving wheels, the striker wheel is driven to be rotated to ignite the disposable lighter.